Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  Her good humor returned, and she smiled at the three boys.

  “If you say so.”

  The third boy glanced up and took notice of David.

  “Is he a new archeologist?”

  She looked over in his direction.

  “No, but Signore Corbelli is helping me dig here at the new site.”

  “Is he nice to you?” the first boy asked.

  “Anybody’s gotta be nicer than Giovanni,” the second boy corrected him.

  “He’s nice to me,” she said, never taking her eyes off David, “most of the time.”

  “Do you need us to kick his ass?” the third boy asked, his bravado diminished by his thin, lanky stature.

  “You could try,” David answered, feeling a juvenile urge to defend himself.

  The boys laughed at his threat and ran around the tents, taunting David to catch them. He hopped out of his hole and lunged at the boy with the gutter mouth, but the boy was quick as an alley rat and dodged out of arm’s reach.

  Sera joined in, circling one of the boys around the sifting table. They pivoted and dodged, until the boy darted back out into the open area. She was quick on his heels, and her hat flew off as she chased after him.

  David stopped in his tracks, and the boy he was after dashed away out of sight. David had never seen her without that stupid straw hat on. In the bright sun, her brown hair lit up in a thousand shades of gold and bronze. The wavy tresses tumbled down around her shoulders as the breeze tossed the locks about her face. Tucking an errant strand behind her ear, Sera laughed as she bent to retrieve her hat, and he was struck again by how beautiful she was in the rare, unguarded moment.

  Still staring, he wasn’t prepared when his own hat was slapped off his head from behind. He spun around to grab the miscreant, only to trip over the shovel at his feet. He careened into a tent post, and then slid against the tight rope tethering it to the ground. A streak of fire burned across his back as he went down, until the iron spike gave way and pulled from the earth, collapsing the corner of the canvas tent on top of him.

  “David!”

  The tarp lifted, and a cloud of swirling dust clogged his throat and burned his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Sera asked.

  He lay sprawled in the dirt, staring up into her concerned face, the sun a bright halo around her head.

  “I’m fine. Just my pride is hurt.”

  Her frown transformed into a broad grin. “Sì, it’s not very machismo to be bested by an eleven-year-old boy.”

  “I wasn’t bested, merely caught off guard.”

  “Sure you were.” She offered her hand and helped him to his feet.

  “Sorry we wrecked the tent, Serafina,” one of the boys said as the three gathered around them.

  “It’s not me you should apologize to.” She nodded her head in David’s direction.

  “Sorry, Signore Corbelli,” the boys said in unison.

  “Apology accepted.” He tried to look stern, but it was hard when faced with their contrite expressions. “Next time I’ll be ready for you.”

  “You’re on,” said the one who’d gotten the better of him.

  “Go on now.” She waved them away. “We’ve got a tent to repair.”

  “Bye, Serafina,” the boys shouted as they raced down the street, their joyful laughter a stark contrast to the horror of the war going on outside the ancient walls.

  “Isn’t it a bit dangerous for children to be playing in the ruins?” he asked as he brushed the dust and dirt off his pants.

  “Sì, but it’s safer than running around the countryside where the Germans might run over them with one of their tanks, or the Allies might shoot them for the fun of it.”

  His expression must have surprised her, because she raised a challenging brow in his direction.

  “Don’t look so shocked. I used to play in the ruins myself as a child.”

  “Now, why am I not surprised?” He shook his head and watched the boys disappear around the corner. “I’m amazed that your father allowed you to do it.”

  Her good humor instantly vanished.

  “My father never gave a damn what I did.”

  She stepped around him and picked up the fallen tent post. Looking at her profile, with her jaw clenched and her lips pressed into a thin line as she struggled to right the canvas tarp, he could tell she was fighting another kind of battle, one deep within herself. Somehow, he had struck a nerve, and a very sensitive one, at that.

  “Here, let me help.” He reached for the tarp and guided the grommet onto the tip of the post.

  “I don’t need any— David, you’re hurt.”

  *

  “What?”

  “Your back. There’s blood on your shirt.”

  “There is?” He twisted to look over his shoulder, not that he would be able to see the spots of crimson seeping through the rough gray cotton. “Probably a rope burn from when I fell against the tether line.”

  “Well, let’s take a look at it.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.” He shrugged, then failed to hide his wince.

  “With all the dust and dirt around here, no open wound is fine. It could get infected.”

  “Yeah. You wouldn’t want to lose your cheap slave labor,” he grumbled as he righted the corner of the tent.

  “You’re not cheap slave labor. Your work is very helpful and much needed. I couldn’t do this without you.”

  “Thanks.” He turned to face her, surprise at her concern evident in his expression. “It’s nice to know you care.”

  Serafina took a step back, flustered by his comment. Did he really think she was cold and heartless enough not to worry over him?

  “Here, sit down.” She indicated one of the two stools under the shifting tent. “Take your shirt off so I can get a look at the damage.”

  David unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it from his broad shoulders, exposing a strong chest and toned stomach. Serafina’s breath evaporated from her lungs. Her heart pounded wildly, and her blood pulsed in certain lower areas where it had no right to be pulsing.

  Not for David.

  She grabbed her canteen and a clean rag, busying herself with the items she might need to clean the cut as he sat on the stool and waited.

  She blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. What in the world had come over her?

  When she turned back, she nearly tripped over the other stool.

  David sat still as stone, looking as only God could make a man. He was beautiful—the only word to describe him at that moment. The sunlight filtering through the tent kissed every curve and muscle, gilding each hollow and ridge on his body with a golden hue.

  She sat on the stool behind him before he caught her ogling him. Placing her hand against her thundering heart, she tried to catch her breath. She unscrewed the top of her canteen, wetted the rag, and attempted to pull herself together.

  Oh, come on, you’ve seen a man’s bare chest before.

  Yes, a little voice inside her head chimed in, but never looking like this.

  She dabbed at the cut, the angry raised welt a vicious stripe across his strong back.

  “Ow. Take it easy.”

  “Sorry.” She tried to calm her voice. After all, it wasn’t his fault she’d lived the life of a nun for far too long. “There’s some dirt ground into it. I need to clean it out.”

  She gentled her touch and allowed her fingers to graze his skin, the heat of him warm against her fingertips.

  She heard his intake of breath, but whether it was from the cool rag on his cut or her fingers on his skin, she couldn’t be sure.

  As she dabbed at the rope burn, her vision blurred, and the raw mark shifted and grew. Soon, his back was covered with deep, red lash marks, as if he’d been whipped repeatedly. She felt sick, seeing strips of torn flesh and oozing welts where his smooth, tan skin used to be.

  Serafina squeezed her eyes shut. But try as she might, the image of David, his back torn and ravaged, was still
there.

  He shifted and spoke over his shoulder to her.

  “Sera, are you all right?”

  *

  “Fine. I’m fine,” she snapped, swiping her hair out of her face.

  She was lying. He could tell. But about what, David couldn’t be sure.

  Suddenly the question that had been in the back of his mind since they’d seen the newsreel appeared front and center. Why did she hate the Americans so? Common sense told him to leave it alone, that her reasons were none of his business.

  But the soldier in him wanted to find out what Sera’s secret was. Everyone had one. Lord knew, he was living proof of that. He needed to know if hers might somehow jeopardize his mission. All he had to do was find the right trigger to get her to talk.

  The tunes she hummed when she thought no one was listening drifted back into his head.

  “So, why do you sing American songs?”

  The press of the cool cloth on his back stopped.

  “I wasn’t singing,” she replied, but the telltale force she used when she resumed cleaning his cut told him she was embarrassed that he’d caught her at it.

  “Yes, you were. And that’s not the first time I’ve heard you doing it.”

  Angling to look at her over his shoulder, he planned his next words very carefully.

  “What I find interesting is that you seem particularly fond of American Big Band tunes. I thought you hated Americans.”

  “I do.”

  “But you like their music?”

  Sera’s expression shifted to guarded in an instant. She pulled away, putting the relative safety of space between them. Even though she no longer touched him, David could still feel the heat of her fingertips burning a trail down his back.

  She tossed the rag on the table and screwed the top on her canteen.

  “It’s not a crime.”

  “Ah, but Mussolini might disagree. It’s illegal to listen to Allied broadcasts, and that’s the only place you could be hearing those songs.”

  When her eyes met his, he saw alarm in them. Her face grew pale, making tiny brown freckles stand out on her checks. She stood and went back into the pit and resumed digging. The scrape of her trowel in the ash and pumice filled the silence around them.

  “Don’t worry. You aren’t the only one to sneak a listen to the Allied broadcasts. If I had a radio, I’d listen to them myself.” That, at least, was no lie. What he wouldn’t give to hear daily news on the Allied front.

  Sera sat in her little trench and stared at him. He could almost see the wheels in her head turning as she weighed his words. Could she trust him? Would she?

  Finally, she let out a heavy sigh.

  “Maria and Heberto listen to the BBC on the radio, and occasionally I listen with them. Sometimes they play the Big Band songs. Besides, it’s better than listening to Mussolini talk about the war.”

  “So, you don’t like listening to Il Duce’s lies?”

  “They’re not lies.” Once more, her defenses came up.

  David walked over and squatted down on the edge of the hole.

  “Maybe not all of them, but you can’t tell me you believe everything he says. That the war is succeeding? That Italy is stronger than ever because of her ties with Hitler?”

  The scraping stopped, and she looked at him as if he were stupid.

  “Do you expect me to believe the Americans are telling the truth about the war? That they care what happens to us as they trample their way across Italy to Germany?”

  He shrugged to mask the tension he was feeling. He had to be careful. He was treading on fragile ground. If he asked too many questions, he risked exposing himself instead of discovering what lay behind Sera’s issues with America.

  “From what I’ve heard, the Allies aren’t so bad. I’ve heard they’ve been dropping supplies for the poor and hungry all over Italy. Their medics treat the wounded and sick with medicines they might never get if it weren’t for the U.S.”

  “That’s just Allied propaganda.” She turned back to her work, gauging deep chunks of earth in the pit. “They also drop bombs on innocent women and children. Those same bombs destroy centuries of art and history, so don’t tell me the Allies care about us.”

  “And I suppose the Germans have been nothing but courteous to the citizens of Italy?”

  “They’ve been better than the Americans.”

  “What has America ever done to you?”

  David had to know. His mission—his life—might depend on it.

  “They’re the enemy.”

  “So are Britain and France, but you seem to hate Americans in particular. Why?”

  Sera’s hand gripped her leg, the knuckles turning white as she clutched the muscle of her thigh.

  “They have no business being here.”

  “Only Hitler and Mussolini think that.” He rested his chin on his folded arms, prepared to pick at whatever scab he needed to in order to get some answers. “If the Allies can bring about the end of the war, all the better. Most of Italy couldn’t care less who wins anymore.”

  “There are some who still care.”

  “The Fascists.” He eyed her speculatively. “Are you a Fascist, Sera?”

  She glared at him, her mouth compressed into a thin, hard line. He knew he was pushing her hard, but it was the only way he could get to her secrets.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then what is it? You certainly don’t strike me as a resistance fighter.” The very thought of reserved Sera with a gun in her hand almost made him laugh. Threaten her precious ruins, and she’d fight like a mother lion protecting her cubs, but otherwise she didn’t seem to care about anything else.

  “Tell me. Why do you hate the Americans so?”

  The force she used with the trowel when she resumed digging told him he was getting too close, and she didn’t like it. She turned her head away from him, and for a moment he thought he may have pushed her too far. Or maybe he hadn’t pushed her far enough.

  “Why, Sera?”

  She threw her trowel in the dirt and whipped around to look at him, her blue eyes shooting daggers of fire.

  “Damn it. Because my father is one.”

  Chapter 12

  Serafina stared at David as his tan face paled. Had she shocked him? Was he appalled?

  She told herself it didn’t matter, that everyone in town knew what she was. It would have been only a matter of time before he found out, too.

  But it did matter.

  Bastarda. The word still hurt even after all these years. The looks from the women in the marketplace as she shopped with her mother, comments whispered behind cupped hands to protect a child’s sensitive ears.

  But she’d heard them. The taunting of her classmates when she was a young girl, words hurled at her on the playground like stones thrown at a stray dog. Bastarda.

  Would David reject her, too?

  Could he see her pain? She knew the truth was there, written all over her face. She could feel the strain in every muscle of her body as she tried to hold back the emotions.

  He finally closed his gaping mouth, and a look of genuine concern replaced his stunned expression.

  “Jesus, Sera. What did he do to you?”

  Her shoulders slumped as the fight went out of her. She didn’t have the strength to keep the past buried any more. At least, not with David.

  “My mother was the prettiest girl in Pompei.”

  He moved from his squatting position to sit on the edge of the pit. She spoke so softly, he had to lean closer to hear her.

  “She had her whole life ahead of her… and then she met a man. It was during the Great War. He was an American soldier stationed in Naples. To a girl from a small, remote town, I supposed he seemed brave, heroic. It wasn’t hard for him to sweep her off her feet.”

  Understanding dawned in David’s eyes as he listened to her story.

  “Your father?”

  “Yes.” Her hatred of the man still left a bitter ta
ste in her mouth. But she would not cry over him, not anymore. He wasn’t worth it.

  “What happened?”

  She shrugged, trying to show her indifference over the man who gave her life. But if the simple act didn’t fool her, how could she expect it to fool David?

  “He did what a lot of American soldiers did then. Promised her the world, took what he wanted, and then left her behind.”

  “And you? Did he leave you behind, too?”

  She ran her fingers through the loose earth in front of her, staring down at the dirt and ashes as they slipped through her fingers.

  “He told my mother he’d send for us after the war was over.”

  “But he never did?”

  She turned her head away. The story was all too familiar for many soldiers returning from war. Everyone knew that, but it didn’t make the hurt any less. She shook her head.

  “No, he sent a few letters and some money in the beginning. But even that small gesture stopped after a year or two.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “My mother was disgraced. Her parents—my grandparents—stood by her, but most of the town shunned her when they found out she carried a bastard. An American bastard.”

  David sat silent for a long time. What was he thinking? How would he look at her now? She kept her gaze on the dirt in front of her, not daring to look up to see.

  Finally he spoke, his voice a soft whisper.

  “That must have been tough for her.”

  “It was.”

  “Did she ever marry?”

  She thought of her beautiful mother’s lovely face slowly becoming etched with lines of worry and exhaustion as she struggled year after year to support them both.

  “No. This is a small town. People here don’t forget that easily.”

  “What about you? It must have been hard for you growing up without a father.”

  Serafina recalled the many times she ran home from school, the other children’s voices chanting close behind her as she darted down the narrow town streets.

  “Children can be very cruel to anyone who’s different.”

  “I’m sorry.” There was a long silence between them before he spoke again. “Did you ever meet your father?”

  “Once. My mother had me study English after school. I didn’t know why at the time, but after she died, I found the few letters he’d sent her, and I knew. She was preparing me to meet him someday. So when I was nineteen, I went to America to find him.”